


and we keep living

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: #WrathofKhan35th, AU: sitting by your hospital bed, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: Out there, in that same spot, the space extended infinite in all directions.





	and we keep living

**Author's Note:**

> written in celebration of #WrathofKhan35th   
> this work is situated right after the glass scene on the wrath of khan. everything after that is wild canon alternative, with a little of reboot canon & my own personal headcanon as well.   
> p.s.: the only person who revise this was me, and very briefly. i apologize in advance

“They told me you were dead”, Captain James T. Kirk said quietly to the motionless figure of his second in command, “I thought you were dead.”

Commander Spock, of course, didn’t answer him. He was in a meditative sleep and no one in the universe knew precisely when he would wake up, or if he would open his eyes at all. Jim sighed. At the door, Doctor McCoy watched the scene with a frown on his face. 

“You can’t guilty him into waking up, Jim.” his voice was severe. “That’s not how it works.” 

“You can’t know that. Could be it and there’s not a single person who would be the wiser.”

( _ Would it be better,  _ Jim thought,  _ if you were dead _ ?) 

“Jesus Christ, kid—”

“It’s been three weeks”, Jim answered his best friend, his voice so small and quiet and  _ defeated _ . “I’m running out of options here, Bones. I need someone to tell me it’s going to end soon. I need someone to come up with the perfect idea — some kind of miracle.” 

“I’m sorry, Jim. He is going to wake up eventually, though. We are doing our best and he knows that.  _ You  _ know that.” 

“I miss him.” 

Bones sighed, and rested his hand on Jim’s right shoulder — the closest. “It’s going to be alright.” 

**//**

Jim leaned against the wall, his breath short.  _ I’m having a panic attack,  _ he said to himself.  _ I’m having a panic attack. I’m having— _

The doctors told him that there was nothing they could do. Vulcan biology is so complex — the voice of the Betazoid neurologist was silky in his mind —, we can’t begin to imagine how it would response under this circumstances. In fact, she continued, we don’t have how to guess how any specie would react in this scenery. It’s just never happened before. 

We have to wait and see, the one who was human said, and Jim thought lacked him empathy. Just a little. Just enough. If he’s gonna wake up, the doctor went on, then he’s gonna wake up. 

Bones stood there, silent, as a gargoyle. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t have to. Jim could see it in his eyes — he looked so hopeless.  _ At least _ , his face said,  _ he is alive. At least there is a possibility.  _

Isn’t hope, though, the worse thing that could happen? The dubious air of chance?

“Are you okay?” a nurse asked him, her voice kind. She was dressed all in blue, her hair braided with stones, as was the custom of her people. 

“I’m fine”, Jim answered her, his voice cracking. “I’m fine.”

“Bad news?” He stared at her, blankly. She smiled sadly. “Let’s get you some water. I heard humans drink it with sugar when they are upset. Or is it salt?” 

“What’s your name?” 

“It’s K’orar, sweetie. It's going to be just alright.” 

_ I’m having a panic attack,  _ Kirk thought to himself while following her down the hall,  _ I’m going to die.  _

**//**

Bones handled the glass full of scotch to Jim, and said “Drink it.” 

“I thought we drank scotch differently—” 

“I’m sure you will need it.” 

Jim stared at him, his eyes hard. This was starting to look like an ambush, and he never did well while cornered. “You are scaring me, Bones.” 

“We have to talk.” 

“Am I going to like this talk?” 

“No, I don’t think so, no.” 

“Then it can wait. I don’t have the presence of mind to do this. Not today, of all days. It’s been—” 

“Five weeks. Which is my point exactly.” 

“Don’t you start with this—”

“ _ Jim. _ ”

They glared at each other, the glasses on their hands by the half. There was a table in the middle of the room. Jim was glad about that. He had to be dissuaded of jumping on his best friend’s neck, no matter his nice intentions. 

“It’s my private life.” 

“I’m your best friend.” 

“I got on leave.” 

“I’m your  _ best friend. _ ” 

“I don’t think it’s your call—” 

“I’m your  _ best friend,  _ Jim, damnit!, and I’m in my rights over here, giving you my piece of mind.” 

“It’s not your  _ call. _ ” 

Bones sighed, and looked up, at the ceiling. Out there, in that same spot, space extended infinite in all directions. “I’m thinking about it because someone has to do it. All I want is for you to be happy. Hell, it isn’t looking like it will be possible, so I will settle on you having some peace, at least.”

“He is going to wake up.” 

“You can’t know that, kid.” 

“Yes I fucking  _ can  _ because I know it! I fucking know it. The doctors—” 

“You know what the doctors said.”

“And so do you. You were one of them, after all.” 

“We said there was possibility—”

“ _ Exactly—” _

“—of all kind of outcomes.” 

“You are asking me, what? You are asking me to give up? To kill him on my mind and move on?”

“It’s not what I am saying…” 

“Then what is it? Tell me, Bones, what is it?” 

“I’m saying you have to be ready to let go. You have to prepare yourself for the worst, even if you are hoping for the best.” 

“It sounds an awful lot like self help, Bones. And like giving up, which would be a betrayal for all that we lived, Spock and I. I’m not going to throw our life on the mud like this.”

“He would want you to have some peace.” 

“Oh, don’t start it. Spock would want to be with me and you know that. You know. You two always fighted but we are all friends, the three of us. Why are you being like this?” 

Bones sighed and downed the rest of his scotch, making a face at the glass. “You want to know why I’m being like this. I will tell you. Yes, I will. I’m being like this, Jim”, he said, staring at the ice cubes that were all that was left of his drink. “because you are the surviving part. And in my experience, as a doctor and as a friend, we should always stand by the living, and bury the dead.” he stood there, in silence, for maybe thirty seconds. “Now, your drink.” 

Jim looked at him dead in the eye, rose his glass and drank the scotch till the last drop. 

**//**

It was mid morning, or what would pass as morning on space. The instaured time-measurement collectively accepted. Jim was folding some clothes, uniforms and civil shirts. Jeans. Underwear. He was so bored he didn’t know what he was going to do with himself. He was on leave, indefinitely. They tried to make him reconsider. They tried to convince him that all that time without assignments would drive him nuts. That would be worse. But how could he work, when Spock was kind of dying, maybe not, probably yes, no one could say for certain? Everyone called him workaholic but even a Captain has some lines he wouldn’t cross. 

Sulu was holding the bridge on his absence. And it was really an absence, since he almost never saw anyone. He spent all the time able on the infirmary, and then on his quarters, and he usually ate at odd hours. He was still at Enterprise, and people loved him and missed him, but they didn’t approach him. No one did, only Bones and sometimes Uhura. Chekov, two times. Scotty, for a while, because he couldn’t train himself to call Sulu with any major disasters. And Sulu, when he was desperate. Four times? Seven? Not more than two hands could count.

Jim sighed and folded a sheet. 

**//**

“You are going to get yourself killed!”, Jim yelled at the retreating figure of Spock. He was going to take a shower. He always did that when he was mad at Jim, because the sound of it usually drowned his husband’s voice pretty effectively. 

“The chance of something bad happening is less than fifteen per cent.” he said, calmly, without turning. His tone, though, was hard, almost dismissive. Jim wanted to throw a vase at his head, and he almost did. Instead, he threw a pillow that hit Spock on the back. “Was that  _ necessary _ ?” 

“Oh, sorry. Am I keeping you to go shower passive-aggressively?” 

“Vulcans do not do passive-agr—” 

“Too bad that  _ you  _ do.” 

Spock turned, looking at him coldly. “I wasn’t aware that I had marry a third grader, as you humans like to say.”

“I wasn’t aware that I had marry a man with intense suicidal tendencies. I guess it makes us even.” 

“I’m going to take a shower.” Spock told him, his posture perfect, and then left without waiting for an answer. 

Jim threw another pillow at the closed door. 

**//**

He looked at the pristine blue sheet that was covering Spock’s bed and sighed, resting his head on his right hand. They had taken Spock to more exams for at least thirty minutes before Jim rose up from his chair and went to the bed to straighten the sheet and change the pillowcases. The new ones were pale yellow. In the bed they looked like flowers. 

Jim wished that they were on some planet, even if he loved Enterprise. He just wanted to have a window with a curtain that he could open and then he would see the heat of some sun. The room where Spock was living was just depressing. He wouldn’t know that, since he was sleeping, but Jim spent almost every waking minute there. He sometimes even slept in that chair. He wished he could have some sun — the real thing. Not the led light on the ceiling that sometimes malfunctioned and died. 

They brought Spock back when Jim was fluffing the pillows. His face made Jim smile, even if Spock was still sleeping. “What did you find?” he asked Nurse Chapel. 

“We can’t know yet”, she answered him, kindly. He was growing so tired of that tone. He nodded at her anyway, and then she left. 

“You should just wake up”, Jim told his husband conversionately. “Everyone is getting uncomfortable around me, and it’s only been a week. Is this what you wanted for us?” Spock didn’t answer him. Jim sighed. “Oh, forget it. At least the pillowcases are yellow this time. The last ones were so depressing.” 

**//**

Jim moved his knight (white. he was playing white that time) and smiled. “I guess this is a check, Commander.” 

Spock rolled his eyes, and stared very intently at the game before moving his bishop and capturing Jim’s knight. “Doesn’t look like it, no.” 

Jim grinned at him, staring at Spock’s face with a glint on his eyes. “Check mate”, he said, while taking down Spock’s king with the white rook. Spock looked at him, blankly, before smiling. A little. 

“I will have to admit defeat. Even if I still think you cheated.” 

“I didn’t cheat! You are just a sore loser.” 

“Vulcans do not act like ‘sore losers’, as you say.”

“So you keep whining. Just admit that I won it fairly.” 

“I wouldn’t want to lie, Captain.”

“Well! I guess you’ll have to sleep on the couch.” 

“We don’t have a couch, Jim.”

“I mean figuratively.” 

“We figuratively don’t have a couch.” 

“You think it’s hilarious.” 

“Indeed I think, Jim.” 

Jim sighed, and smiled. “Well, if we don’t have a couch then a sheet in the middle of the bed will have to do.” 

“I don’t think it is wise.”

“Let’s try it!” 

**//**

“They are beautiful”, Jim said to the florist. “Thank you.” 

They were stationed on a planet of the Federation, and everyone was around the station enjoying a little of well deserved leave. Jim had lost Bones — purposefully — after the first ten minutes of walking, because all the troublemaker teenage years and adulthood on the military did have a few perks. He searched for flowers, purple or pink, that he could put on Spock’s room to make it more cheerful. Bones wouldn’t approve, so Jim just cutted the problem out and went without him. The ones he got were red like the sand on the desert of Vulcan, and they looked like Spock. Jim was happy, or at least satisfied. It was a good day. 

He walked back to Enterprise, already thinking about how he would talk some Science ensign into giving him a little of the specific soil the florist said it would be necessary for the flowers to stay alive. In Vulcan it was considering rude giving someone a dead thing, so all the gift plants were on a pot. Jim learned his lesson after a very awkward encounter with Spock’s parents which involved a vase, water and three sunflowers. 

He waved at Scotty when he was back at the Teleportation Room. “How were things there, Captain?” 

“Very nice. I think you should go a little, Scotty. I saw a lot of bars.” 

“Clean bars?”

“Looking like it, yes.” 

“Well so I guess I will have to go there soon.”

“Just don’t let to the last minute. You’re not a very responsible drunk and we would have to search the planet for you again.”

Scotty grinned at him, “Aye, Captain.” 

Jim smiled back and then went to the Science Department to bully or charm some ensigns into overlooking a certain heist of classified soil. 

**//**

The ceiling of his room was pit dark, because he commanded the lights to be in 7%. The sheets were cold and the bed too big, but he should have been accustomed to it by that moment.  _ It is already five weeks,  _ he thought,  _ and one day.  _ It didn’t mean anything, did it? Why should five-one be the magic number?

He would wake up, someday. Soon, maybe. Things were exactly like the day before and the day before that, but he felt like that night bered something definite. How long could he keep putting off going back? How long could he maintain hope? 

Jim kept the light at 7% because anything over that would make he see the photos hanging on the walls. Happy pictures. Vacations, friends, pets, marriage photographies. Godchildren, and nieces. Siblings. Family. His life with Spock, so well documented. So well preserved. 

Jim sighed and pushed his face against the pillow to scream. He stared at the wall, maybe, or the door, when he was done. To the darkness, really. 

He cleaned out his tears and closed his eyes to go back to sleep. 

**//**

“And then Chekov asked me if I could look at some insects they found at the planet. I told him kid, I’m a lot of things, none of them a biologist, and I didn’t even know you had interests like that, is this Sulu influence—” 

“It must be.” a small voice answered him, and Jim stopped mid-sentence. 

“What did you say?” Spock open his mouth to say again, probably with some lecture about hearing people properly being a good personality trait on a Captain, but Jim stopped him. “No, don’t say anything.” he rose up from his chair, walked to the door very calmly, and then started yelling for someone to please  _ come the hell here I think I’m mad or I think something really amazing just happened and I need you all to bear witness _ —

( _ It must be the answer,  _ Jim thought to himself,  _ that I was looking for. Would it be better if you were really dead?  _

_ No.  _

_ No, it wouldn’t. _ )


End file.
